Bye Lance

[Exit Stage Left]

It wouldn't surprise me at all if Armstrong was found guilty of doping by a properly constituted court of law.  But until that happens - if it happens at all - he remains innocent and the legitimate winner of 7 Tours.  Whatever USADA have to say on the matter is irrelevant unless tested in court.  There's a lot in Liggett's comments that ring true.

The precedent of East Germany is interesting. Admissions of doping haven't erased medal records. I'm quite interested at the moment as to how we became the next new East Germany, Australia having been the last new East Germany. Charlie Walsh and Heiko Salzwedel seem to have been the key figures in carrying the Torch of organised state sport into the new Millennium, in cycling at least.
I read an interesting polemic about the subject in general.
http://www.sabotagetimes.com/football-sport/team-gb-are-the-new-east-germany/

Certainly the element of national pride and state prestige is there - but then sport has been used for that since long before East Germany existed, or Germany was even united. Another comparison they fail to make is there too. When the article says

Every time they pulled away from their West Germany on the track, it was seen as another boost for socialism on the way to the inevitable victory over their decadent capitalist neighbours.

it is only partly right. National sporting rivalries in the Soviet Bloc were mainly aimed at the USSR, not the West. In the same way, Team GB's success is to beat the Australians and rival the USA, not China or Russia.

An obvious difference is that here we are allowed to cast aspersions at our own national teams and even question their existence.

I'd be interested in a Polish perpective on the appointment of Haiko Salzwedel to run Rusvelo, the Russian equivalent of British Cycling. Obviously his experience with the Australian and British teams is a good recommendation, but is it easier for a German with experience in the DDR period to deal with the Russians?
http://rt.com/sport/rusvelo-cycling-russia-salzwedel-kupfernagel-romanyuta-669/

[DaveJ]

A bit more care with spoilers please.  If I'd wanted to know the Stage results I'd have looked at the Vuelta thread.

Dave

[Biff]

David Walsh on Liggett in today's ST

http://freetexthost.com/g35tjktvau

[spesh]

A bit more care with spoilers please.  If I'd wanted to know the Stage results I'd have looked at the Vuelta thread.

Dave

<Manuel> Que? </Manuel> 

And if you mean this comment from Honest John, how many stages behind are you? 

Again, I understand the point, HJ, but doping is a COLOSSAL subject - in all sports.  It just happens that it's being discussed on this board, so that's where people comment.

But 35 pages'-worth of it? About a nasty foreign has-been? Isn't that a tad obsessive when there's only 6 pages on the Vuelta, where a British rider might win (if he's very lucky) and a British rider returning from injury won yesterdays' stage?

[Exit Stage Left]

I quite like the party political dimension to the Lance story. To the cycling enthusiasts of the college towns of the USA Lance is a man who comes from his base in Austin Texas to steal the Tour de France by nefarious means in 1999. Meanwhile, George W Bush comes from Austin Texas in 1999 to steal the Presidency by nefarious means.
George W can't be impeached, he's long gone, but Lance can be impeached. It harms US cycling, but so what, the man supported Bush.
The David Walsh story is interesting.

David Walsh on Liggett in today's ST

http://freetexthost.com/g35tjktvau

We can't link to the article itself, because it's behind a paywall. So it's unclear if the arms length link is out of distaste, as in Daily Mail linking, or because we can't access it by other means. At some point I'd expect the YACF attitude to shift to the idea that Murdoch bought the Tour de France to soften his profile in the Olympic year, following a lot of negative press, using talent which was developed using lottery and Sports Council funding, along the lines of the outrage at Lance using public money from the US Postal Service for his early victories.

[spesh]

Quelle surprise!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/cycling/9518947/Lance-Armstrong-book-to-be-amended-for-UK.html

I can't help thinking it's a bit pointless, because the juicy bits from the unexpurgated Leftpondian edition of Hamilton's book will be all over the interwebs by the time the UK edition hits the shops, or someone will have scanned the entire book and posted it to scribd.com. And there's no reason to stop someone in the UK from ordering the book from the States. 

[spesh]

Slightly off-topic, but there's an interesting story over on Cycling News about Jörg Jaksche, who was popped as a result of the Operation Puerto inquiry. I've linked to it here, rather than opening a fresh doping-related thread, because Jaksche's comments about the UCI's response to his full disclosure add further weight to the argument that the UCI needs major reform in the wake of the Armstrong affair.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/jorg-jaksche-doping-hypocrisy-and-a-dog-called-bella

“I spoke out too much. That was the main problem,” Jaksche tells Cyclingnews six years after Puerto rocked the Tour.

“There were riders in the same situation as me and officially they never spoke out but to avoid legal problems in the future they spoke to the police and confessed everything to them but they didn’t talk to the UCI. The pressure from the police was a lot higher. Then these riders went out and said they’d never talked. I didn’t want to have that on my conscience and of course I knew that if I went out and said here’s my story and that this is the system, I knew that there was a big chance of never getting back into cycling again.”

Jaksche spent hours talking to the UCI in the wake of his suspension. He spoke to their lawyers, Anne Gripper, their former head in anti-doping, and president, Pat McQuaid. But despite the cooperation they discounted his testimony, saying that he hadn’t provided enough information. Yet in the public sphere he had talked about Fuentes, an introduction made by Manolo Saiz, doping at CSC, his first encounters with EPO at Polti and the culture within Telekom. The UCI weren’t impressed, and initially said they would appeal and press for a two-year ban.

“If you confess and tell them how things are you normally get a reduction of your punishment. I knew that if I talked it would be difficult to come back anyway, so I had a discussion with the UCI about my confession and if I would get one year or two. Someone from the German criminal board had to call them and say that I did qualify as a testimony for them and therefore my words should be good enough for them.”

The UCI dropped their hopes of a two-year ban but Jaksche had no contact from them as a result. There were no further questions and to Jaksche’s knowledge, no further investigations were made by the UCI into any of the individuals or teams that he’d implicated.

“This is how you have to deal with the UCI. They try and protect their sport but they don’t know how to do that. They think that a sport without scandal is a clean sport and they have so many misleading people in their federation. There are so many cadavers. It’s like having a dead body in your basement festering away and going bad. That’s how the UCI treat doping. They gave me no hope and I felt worse treated by the UCI than if I hadn’t confessed and told them my story. It wasn’t the reaction I was hoping to get."

“McQuaid said this and that but they would have liked me to have handled things differently. I don’t really know what they meant by that.”

[spesh]

Fat Pat seems to be preparing the ground for the inevitable...

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/mcquaid-says-uci-not-afraid-to-sanction-lance-armstrong

And now for the latest from Pat "U-Turn" McQuaid:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/uci-may-not-appeal-lance-armstrong-ban

Apparently, the UCI aren't going to appeal to the CAS over jurisdiction, but Fat Pat is still demanding that USADA hand over the complete case file. The last bit of the article is interesting...

[What] McQuaid may, however, be looking into further is allegations that riders gave their testimony against Armstrong in a deal with USADA for a reduced sanction over past doping admissions.

Although the names of the riders who testified are yet to be made public, McQuaid said he would look into statements made by Garmin-Sharp manager Jonathan Vaughters, who wrote in the Cyclingnews forums that several of his riders had doped in the past, including Tom Danielson, David Zabriskie and Christian Vande Velde.

"We need to see if Jonathan Vaughter's accusations have any substance so we can see if we take action against these riders," said McQuaid.

A cynical translation might be "if Armstrong's going under the bus, we're going to make damn sure the witnesses for the prosecution join him there, too."

[mr magnolia]

I think the UCI may be screwed, long term, by this affair.
They need to wake up, form a newCo and start again. Clean.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

That will take concerted effort by the majority of cycling federations. That might happen if there are legal charges laid against enough UCI officials, otherwise the corruption will continue to fester.

[Tewdric]

http://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=42552.msg823886#msg823886

I agree!

[spesh]

And now... http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/uci-to-introduce-doping-amnesty

Some kind of amnesty in return for disclosure is somewhat different from truth-and-reconciliation, as talked about by Dick Pound or Jonathan Vaughters, and it's worth noting that if a cycling T&R process is to resemble, say, the South African one, sanctions - even if reduced - would have to be applied across the board where applicable, not just against current and ex-riders who have confessed/been outed before and if the UCI agrees to an amnesty. And as someone commented elsewhere, should the teams be considering granting the UCI an amnesty, given their alleged role in covering Armstrong's doping, among others'?

[Exit Stage Left]

I saw Tyler Hamilton interviewed on the BBC News Channel's 'Hardtalk' last night. It was a tough grilling, and shows what problems might be faced in a formal court of law. I can see Sparks' point in his judgement.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01mml99/HARDtalk_Tyler_Hamilton_Former_professional_cyclist/

[Exit Stage Left]

I saw Tyler Hamilton interviewed on the BBC News Channel's 'Hardtalk' last night. It was a tough grilling, and shows what problems might be faced in a formal court of law. I can see Sparks' point in his judgement.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01mml99/HARDtalk_Tyler_Hamilton_Former_professional_cyclist/

Hamilton's testimony is weakest from 4 minutes onward in the interview.

Someone else can flag up the strongest parts of his testimony, because he struck me as a burnt-out stoner, promoting his book, while trying to use his floppy hair to shield himself from the glare of tough questioning.

[citoyen]

Reading Hamilton's book, there's a lot of stuff I'm wary of taking at face value but much of it rings true. He doesn't come out of the book looking great himself - Coyle's footnotes provide context that casts doubt on some of Hamilton's claims.

This interview with Daniel Coyle is interesting...
http://bicycling.com/blogs/boulderreport/2012/09/11/daniel-coyle-interview-on-writing-the-secret-race-tyler-hamilton-and-lance-armstrongs-legacy/

That Hardtalk interview is v.poor, tbh - the interviewer seems determined to discredit Hamilton without questioning the credibility of the counter-claims such as Lance's "never tested positive" line. That may well be the kind of technique you'd expect from a hostile defence lawyer cross-examining him in a court of law, but it's pretty shoddy journalism.

d.

[Exit Stage Left]

That Hardtalk interview is v.poor, tbh - the interviewer seems determined to discredit Hamilton without questioning the credibility of the counter-claims such as Lance's "never tested positive" line. That may well be the kind of technique you'd expect from a hostile defence lawyer cross-examining him in a court of law, but it's pretty shoddy journalism.

d.

That's what Hardtalk interviews are like. It's a good way for people to build up resistance to Paxman style grillings out of the public eye. It's quite revealing in a 'Would you buy a used car from this man' way. Lance has essentially put himself before the court of public opinion, so interviews like this serve as a cross examination to establish the reliability of the witnesses.
I'd like to see Vaughters do one, and Lance obviously.

[mattc]

It's still shoddy journalism.

I wonder - did these people start off doing law degrees, then switched to meeja studies when it go too hard?

[citoyen]

That's what Hardtalk interviews are like.

Doesn't reflect well on the BBC.

I'd like to see Vaughters do one, and Lance obviously.

Lance would trample all over an interviewer like that idiot.

d.

[Exit Stage Left]

It's still shoddy journalism.

I wonder - did these people start off doing law degrees, then switched to meeja studies when it go too hard?

Two years out from the London Olympics, and signs that muck and bullets could be about to fly are there in the BBC appointment of  a former war correspondent to its sports news team.
 
Tim Franks, who has been BBC News’s Middle East correspondent since 2007, having previously reported from Iraq during the 2003 invasion, has transferred to the team under sports editor David Bond.
 
Franks replaces Olly Foster, who is off to become the sports presenter on the BBC News Channel.
 
Franks’s journalistic career began in 1990, when he joined World Service from Oxford University, where he graduated in Chinese.
 
He has not previously worked in sport, though he has wide-ranging foreign and political news experience, having been based in Brussels as Europe Correspondent for five years and six years based at Westminster.
 
He has also presented Radio 4′s The World At One and The World This Weekend.

http://www.sportsjournalists.co.uk/olympics/bbc-appoints-war-correspondent-to-cover-sports-news/

[mattc]

Clearly I was wrong in his case - he likes warzones, and seeks to recreate them wherever he goes.

[Wasn't there a DropThe Dead Donkey character like that? ]

[TimC]

I saw Tyler Hamilton interviewed on the BBC News Channel's 'Hardtalk' last night. It was a tough grilling, and shows what problems might be faced in a formal court of law. I can see Sparks' point in his judgement.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01mml99/HARDtalk_Tyler_Hamilton_Former_professional_cyclist/

Hamilton's testimony is weakest from 4 minutes onward in the interview.

Someone else can flag up the strongest parts of his testimony, because he struck me as a burnt-out stoner, promoting his book, while trying to use his floppy hair to shield himself from the glare of tough questioning.

I wasn't impressed with Hamilton OR Tim Franks! The satcom delay was irritating and destroyed the flow of the interview, but it did seem to me that Hamilton was unconvincing and Franks failed to nail him down on some of the important stuff. I'm not saying he's not telling the truth, but what he said is insufficient (I would have thought) to support charges in a legal scenario. However, Hamilton has never been a great communicator and has always had something of the stoned hippy about him - he reminds me very much of my eldest's inability to actually put what he's thinking into words!

[citoyen]

A chap I knew at uni worked as a war correspondent in Afghanistan. He's a first-rate news reporter. I wouldn't ever let him anywhere near sport though.

d.

[Exit Stage Left]

Clearly I was wrong in his case - he likes warzones, and seeks to recreate them wherever he goes.

[Wasn't there a DropThe Dead Donkey character like that? ]

Franks was in Washington at the time of 9/11. and subsequently in Iraq and the Middle East.
Armstrong was an inspiration to the US at that time. The US was determined to prevail at all costs, and those costs included the results of soldiers carrying out patrols while hyped up on medication to counter sleep deprivation. Armstrong is to a certain extent identified with the Bush doctrine, and this has persisted. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/04/29/george-w-bush-lance-armstrong-lead-afghanistan-iraq-veterans-in-texas-ride.html

I've made my mind up on the likely outcome of the Lance problem, which is a peace and reconciliation model. Lance may be formally stripped of his titles, but they will live on in public memory. I'm looking for signs pointing in that direction, so I'm blind to those signs pointing elsewhere. What do people feel was the strongest part of Hamilton's testimony?

[Peter]

His hair.  That is good hair for a sportsman.

[Exit Stage Left]

His hair.  That is good hair for a sportsman.

Yeah, my Mother insists that wearing a motorbike helmet made me bald. The helmet companies should sign him up. Maybe EPO helps, although Riis suggests otherwise.